Club welfare officer forums - an overview

The latest entry of Basketball England's safeguarding blog series by our Safeguarding Specialist Amy Riding.

Missed the others? Read them back:

• Club welfare officers - this blog is for you
• Our award-nominated safeguarding learning package
• Get involved with BE's first Safeguarding Awareness Week
• World Mental Health Day toolkit
• Spectator behaviour standards
• Reflecting on Safeguarding Adults Week
• New year, new safeguarding blog
• Safeguarding adults: What do you need to know?
• Safeguarding in basketball - who's responsible?

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This month's blog provides an overview of the Club Welfare Officer (CWO) forums which were held on the 25 March 2025.

The forums provided a platform for CWOs to connect with the safeguarding team, where we shared important updates and discussed a variety of topics with the aim of supporting our volunteers.  

Representatives from the Sport Welfare Officer (SWO) network also joined the forums; an opportunity for networking and the provision of updates from the SWOs regarding their recent work in supporting clubs. 

Here are the summary points from the forums

• New learning will see the introduction of a safeguarding adults course and an input for juniors. The input for juniors will be short and will aim to inform them about expected standards from the adults around them. This will be shown by clubs at the start of the season  
• The digital route is the preferred method of ID verification for DBS applications  
• There will be no DBS overrides for the 2025/2026 season, as per the safeguarding regulations  
• Social media - best practice is for your CWO to be involved in the club's social media output 
• Personal social media channels - including WhatsApp - and one-to-one messaging between adults (eg. coaches/club staff) and juniors should not happen. Adults should not have children following their social media accounts 
• Photography - consent is needed for images to be taken and consent is needed regarding how images will be used. Consent should be obtained from parents and players 

How do I keep up with safeguarding news? 

News articles are published on the BE website, which you can filter by category.

Head over to our news page, then under the 'Category' drop down menu, select the second option, 'Safeguarding'.

This will provide a complete list of all our safeguarding news.

Will there be another CWO Forum?

The date for the next forum is the 2 July, the timings will be 11:00-12:00 and 19:00-20:00.  

This is a provisional date and will be confirmed closer to the time.  

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